“So, Bigfoot, you the brains of this operation?”
A snarl rippled up one side of the beast's face, the small piggy eyes sliding across to Blake for approval of some sort, but Blake shook his head. The giant leaned forward so their faces were inches apart and stared at him while an asthmatic, raspy breath tore in and out of his mouth. Then, with a grunt, was gone, pushing startled people out the way as he went. Thorne turned to the African American standing next to him. Another flashback. Either Blake had problems making new friends, or else he was getting the band back together.
“You remember Porter, don't you, Thorne?”
He looked coldly at him. “Sam.”
Porter turned away without meeting his eye.
“Let's take a walk,” Blake said. “Get out of these nice folks’ hair.”
He directed Thorne through the bar, his exit watched by his friends and co-workers. It would be a strange way for him to say goodbye, he thought, if he never saw them again. They left the bar and made their way down the hall toward the restaurant. Blake clearly knew where he was going, that he'd planned it all out in advance. He looked back and saw Porter following behind, but the giant was no where in sight. Porter's right hand was in his jacket pocket but it wasn't alone in there.
“I can't believe you punched me in the neck, man.”
Despite what had happened, Blake's tone was light and surprisingly friendly, the menacing edge to his voice now gone. Thorne had experienced similar mood reversals with Blake in the past, but this one set his teeth on edge.
“Where’d you get the freak of nature?”
“Motor pool, Camp Pendleton.”
“You sure it wasn't a circus?”
He thought Blake smiled but it was hard to say for sure with his face busted up.
“Watch what you say to him, he has a brutal temper.”
“Did the scientists give it a name?”
“His friends call him Foster, except, he don't have no friends.”
Blake laughed and slapped Thorne on the shoulder.
They walked into the restaurant. It was late and the tables were empty and set up for the next day’s breakfast. There was no maître d' at the door and they continued to the back of the room and into the kitchen.
Unlike much of the hotel, the kitchen was clean and brightly lit. Four men wearing chef whites paused to stare at them before returning to what they were doing. It surprised Thorne how busy they were considering the empty restaurant, but there was always room service to consider.
They passed through a curtain of thick plastic strips into a loading area stacked with boxes. The heat of the kitchen gave way to a cool, dry air. A muscular man, possibly Samoan, stood next to an outer door smoking. His arms were bare from the top of his shoulder down and covered extensively with tribal tattoos. The cigarette looked comically small in his huge hand. Blake walked up to him, his back straight, his shoulders pulled back.
“Beat it chief, we got some private business to discuss.”
“So go someplace else, I like it here.”
Blake moved a step closer.
“You stay, you die.”
The Samoan dropped his half-smoked cigarette onto the concrete and stood on it. He squared off in front of Blake, assessing him and his already bloody face. The man stood for several seconds staring into Blake's eyes and whatever he saw in them was enough, because he shook his head and walked back toward the kitchen without another word. Thorne had to hand it to Blake, he knew how to handle himself in volatile situations. The Marines had given him something no court-martial could take back and Thorne had a feeling he’d soon be on the other side of it. They walked into a narrow side street. He looked around. Some dumpsters, a smell of piss and rotting garbage. Farther down, he saw a black van with tinted windows and a dent on the side. Next to it stood the giant, Foster.
Thorne turned back to Blake and Porter.
“Why are we here, Aidan?”
Blake indicated the surroundings. “No cameras.”
“I’m not sure I like that as much as you.”
“It's as much to protect you as it is me. There were also no cameras in the kitchen, nor the section of the restaurant we walked through. It's just us, some old buddies catching up. You realize how few places like this still exist in this country? Hoover would cream his pantyhose to see the society we live in now.”
Thorne glanced at his right hand and flexed it, making a fist. The skin over his knuckles was broken and the joints were painful to move. It’d been a long time since he'd been in a fist fight, and he didn't remember this happening to his hand before. He wondered how many cameras were in the bar and if footage of him repeatedly striking an innocent man was, at that moment, being uploaded to the internet.
“How's your face?'
“You have the fists of a little girl, Thorne. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“I think your mother might have mentioned it.”
Blake laughed, then shook his head. “I’ve missed your humor.”
Porter's cell phone chirped and he took it out and started to type.
“Come on, man!” Blake said. “If you're going to stand there holding your dick, go wait with Frankenstein.”
Porter shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever.”
He walked down the alley, head down, typing.
“Fine, you got me here. What are you trying to steal?”
Blake nodded. “Straight to business, I feel you. It's a painting by Picasso. It's not very big, but it's worth a lot of money. They have it in a gallery in Beverly Hills.”
“Is this a joke? Art galleries are bank vaults these days. You told me this wasn't going to be a diamond heist.”
“Relax. I'll go into detail later, but in the meantime all you need to know is that it will be more like office security, nothing to worry about. I know how unlikely that sounds, but you're going to have to trust me.”
Thorne was shaking his head. “I don't know, I don't like it.”
“Why not?”
“A Picasso! I don't know anything about art, but I've heard of him. This won't be like when some old lady's car gets boosted and the cops don't lift a finger, people who own Picassos have friends in high places. They'll be trying to solve this.”
“Let them try, they'll find nothing. The plan is solid.”
Down by the van, Porter laughed, his face still buried in his phone.
“This isn’t who I am,” Thorne said.
“It's just a painting. Nobody gets hurt. One day it’s in a gallery, the next it's on some rich man’s wall, what do you care?”
“You make it sound like you're picking up a nickel someone dropped on the sidewalk.”
“A nickel, eh? I like that.”
“Goddammit, Blake, this is serious.”
Blake pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a long beat. He nodded, as if he'd decided something, and pulled out his wallet. With exaggerated care, his fingers teased something out from behind a credit card and handed it to Thorne. It was a photograph of a teenage girl with pale skin and long, black hair. She was sitting in a train, her head turned to look out the window, her face reflected in the glass. The lighting in the alley wasn’t ideal, but Thorne could see the arteries in her neck, her skin was so clear and flawless.
“Her name's Andrea, she's my kid sister. The picture's about ten years old I guess, she's twenty seven now.” Blake's voice seemed to fade out like a radio signal, before coming back. “It's twenty eight that's going to be the problem. She needs money for an operation and this robbery is the only way that can happen. My back’s against the wall. I've done bad things in my life, but lifting some painting to save my sister's life will not be one of them. As far as I'm concerned, I earned this money in the Corps with everything I went through and I think you did too. So here's the deal. Get us inside the building and I'll give you a full share of the robbery, less the hundred thousand.” His voice softened, became reasonable. “We were friends once, Chris. Can you stop b
eing a boy scout for one night and save my sister?”
Thorne sighed and gave Blake his photograph back.
Nothing was ever simple. A buzz was starting to build in his body. It had been the same earlier on the roof of the hotel before the fall and he liked it. He'd always liked it, it was why he became a Marine. For the rush.
“How much does that leave, out of my share?”
“Nine hundred thousand.”
“Wow.”
“Not bad for a night's work.”
“And Kate, you leave her alone if I do this?”
“Of course.”
“Say it.”
“I won't touch a hair on her head, you have my word.”
Thorne stuck out his hand and, smiling, Blake shook it.
THREE
Thorne walked out the hotel lobby into the searing morning heat. He was wearing the same pale linen suit he’d worn the day before, and for the previous forty six days. The suit was studio property but he’d decided not to return it, not if they were canceling the show. He reached into the top pocket, pulled out his character’s sunglasses, shook the legs open and pushed them onto his face. There was a stylized way he did this that he found hard to stop. He did it once in the pilot episode and the producers liked it so much it’d been incorporated into the show’s opening sequence ever since.
As he reached the sidewalk, a black Audi sedan pulled up to the curb next to him. He ignored it and walked toward Del Mar station. Blake had arranged to meet him in an hour’s time at the hotel bar. Next to him, the Audi rolled along, matching his pace. This couldn’t be him, not already. The car made no sound at all, the engine barely ticking over. He stopped and next to him the car came to a halt. So this was how it was going to be. He placed his hands on either side of the passenger window. The glass was tinted and all he saw was his own face looking back.
The window slid open and refrigerated, leather-scented air wafted out across his face. A young woman sat behind the wheel. Her head was tilted over like a dog wanting a biscuit, and if he had one he might have given it to her. She was on the slutty side of beautiful, but beautiful nevertheless. He leant down and rested his elbows on the windowsill so his head and shoulders were inside the car. He took off his sunglasses and glanced into the back.
Blake wasn’t there, nobody was.
Thorne felt himself relax, perhaps he had this all wrong.
He turned back to the woman. She was in her late twenties or early thirties and had long brown hair with a curl through it like a rope that had been picked apart. She wore a white shirt and faded blue denim shorts that ended so high up her leg the pocket linings hung out. There was a crazed look in her eyes that suited her in a way he could not explain.
“Thought you were someone else.”
The brunette shifted position, turning her hips and shoulders toward him. Her left arm sat high up on the wheel, her long thin fingers almost touching the windshield. The top four buttons in her shirt were unfastened and the unusual angle caused the material to become slack at the front. His drifting attention seemed to amuse her.
“Who’d you want me to be?”
He hesitated. “I think there’s been a mistake here.”
“Oh, there’s no mistake.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re Chris Thorne. I got the right guy, yes?”
He frowned. “Who’re you?”
“I’m Sara. I’m your ride.”
He knew who she was, it was obvious.
“You’re Blake’s girl.”
The smile vanished from her face like it never existed.
“Get in the car, Thorne. You’re letting the goddamn heat in.”
So this is how his world ended, with a pretty girl and a dirty mouth. It seemed as good a way as any for his descent into crime to begin. He didn’t know what he expected. The previous night seemed so much like a bad dream that he’d allowed himself to think he could forget it ever happened. But it was no dream, Blake was for real.
He put his sunglasses back on, opened the door and got in.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s do this.”
Sara didn’t need to be told twice. She stamped on the gas and the sedan shot out from the curb, almost into the back of a late-model white Bronco. She yanked the wheel and the car swung into the next lane, missing the SUV by inches, and continued accelerating. The car was a stick shift and she worked it like a racing driver, her muscular legs dancing the clutch and accelerator pedals, pushing them hard to the floor with each stroke. He looked into the floor well, following her legs to a set of biker boots with oversize buckle fastenings.
“Nice boots.”
“Thanks.”
“You have a motorcycle?”
“My whole life.” She tilted her head back, evaluating. “You?”
“Not since I joined the Corps.”
Now the window was rolled up he became aware of her perfume. It was cheap, the kind sold in supermarkets to teenage girls. An invisible cloud of it surrounded her body, like the shields of an alien spacecraft. The scent was strong and several minutes passed before he noticed that beneath it lay another scent. Sex. Now he’d noticed it, he decided she practically reeked of it. That musky, brackish smell, as familiar to him as freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Within the last hour, he thought. There hadn’t been time to wash so she’d put on the perfume hoping to cover it up.
Sara turned at Cordova and South Arroyo Parkway, heading back to Los Angeles. He couldn’t say he’d missed it, but for sure he wouldn’t miss Pasadena. The five days he’d been shooting here had been the unhappiest of his career and had drawn to a close not just his show, but his relationship with Kate Bloom. He hadn’t treated her right, and it had taken her ending things for him to realize it.
“How you can wear that jacket, it’s like an oven out there.”
“It’s linen,” he said. “Keeps me cool.”
“If I was naked I’d still be too hot.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
She sighed. “You’re a lot like him you know.”
“Who?”
“Aidan, of course.”
Thorne didn’t want to hear about how he and Blake were alike.
“So what was that? You skipping out on us?”
He shrugged. “Maybe, yeah. I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“I’m going through some personal issues right now and I’d rather be dealing with them than planning a robbery with the Marx Brothers.”
“Thorne, it’s a million dollars. After you’re done you can go back to drinking yourself to death or whatever your plan was for the rest of the week, but there’s no changing your mind. Aidan will do what he has to make sure this happens. Too much is at stake for you to screw it up with your bullshit.”
He looked out the side window once again.
While he’d been in the alley with Blake, Kate had packed up and cleared out. He’d known their room was empty before he opened the door, the silence inside had seeped out like a cold draft. After the way she’d looked at him in the bar, it had been a relief to find her gone. He had no idea what he would have said to her. As much as he hated to admit it, Blake had sold him on the robbery. Explaining the fight without revealing the plan to steal the Picasso would be difficult. Kate saw the world clearly. There were no shades of gray, it was black and white, right and wrong. She’d insist he go to the police, or would do so herself.
This morning, none of that mattered. It’d been so clear to him, waking up alone in their hotel bed. He’d made a choice between Kate and the money, and his decision disgusted him. He had to make things right with her, no matter the cost. But Sara’s presence had brought him back to reality. She’d said Blake would do what he had to, and he believed her. The robbery could not be stopped and realizing this, he felt certainty return to his thoughts.
Telling Kate everything stood only to endanger her life. It wouldn’t save their relationship, nor would it make her think better of
him for the night before. The damage was done. Some space apart was what they needed, some time to heal. She wouldn’t be ready to forgive him yet, no matter what he said. While she hadn’t left him a note, she had taken his car. There was a hidden message there, he was sure of it. She’d go back to their apartment in Santa Monica. Kate would stop there, she wouldn’t keep running. Once this business with Blake was behind him, he’d fight for her and he’d give her everything she wanted.
“You going to tell him what happened?”
“Do I need to?”
He looked at her. “I’m all in. That what you want to hear?”
“It’s all I need.”
They sat in silence as she picked her way through traffic. It had been a long time since he’d been a passenger in a car and he found that he didn’t care for it. After over an hour, Sara pulled the Audi over to the curb and killed the engine. They were in Culver City. Next to him, Sara continued to stare out the windshield, her hands still gripping the wheel.
“He says you’re a rock star with electronics. I hope he’s right.”
Thorne stared at her coldly. “This us?”
She pointed across the street at a house with an orange tile roof and white stucco walls. He opened the door and got out, then reached down to grab his bag in the footwell. He looked at Sara one last time. It occurred to him he might not see her again. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. At a fundamental level, there was something badly wrong with her. As an actor, he couldn’t stop himself from drinking it in. The city was full of fakes. Fake emotions, fake accents, fake everything. To see anything genuine, no matter what, was to learn something about the craft and expand your range.
She turned to him, her gaze piercing and bright.
“Word of advice, Thorne. Don’t make assumptions about me based on how I look. I’ll do anything for him, anything at all.”
Night Passenger Page 3